How Nadeem-Shravan Turned An English Original Into Two Hindi Songs For Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke And Salaami

In the series Carbon Copy, we give you trivia on the connecting dots between many countries’ music. This week, we look at how the composers turned Demis Roussos’ “Lovely Lady of Arcadia” into songs for a Hindi film in 1993 and another in 1994

Last week we saw Anu Malik’s creativity in using two dramatically different songs from two time periods and blending them into a single song. This week, let’s look at the scenario in reverse – a song from another period used twice by a composer, but both songs sound completely different! How is that even possible, you may be wondering.

Let us start with Greek singer Demis Roussos. Most people in India know Demis as the man behind the original of Sholay‘s “Mehbooba Mehbooba”. His song “Say you love me”, based on a folk song from Cyprus, called “Ta Rialia”, is widely known as the original of R.D. Burman’s hit song.

Demis Roussos has, to his credit, quite a few German albums too. One such album, from 1974, called Auf Wiedersehn had a song, “Schönes Mädchen aus Arcadia”, that Demis had recorded in 1973 as a single. The song was composed by Leo Leandros, with lyrics by Klaus Munro.

In the same year, Demis added the song’s English version in another English album called “My Only Fascination”. The song, written by Jack Lloyd, was called “Lovely Lady of Arcadia”.

Here’s “Lovely Lady of Arcadia”:

And in German, “Schönes Mädchen aus Arcadia”:

Hold on to that.

Now, let’s get back to Nadeem Shravan.

How would you feel if I told you that “Yunhi Kat Jaayega Safar Saath” from Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke (1993) and “Tumhe Chhede Hawa Chanchal” from Salaami (1994) were inspired by the same song? You may remember the former easily, given how popular it was, and may struggle a bit to remember the latter given that there are other, more popular songs from Salaami, like “Chera Kya Dekhte Ho” and “Mere Mehboob Ki Yehi Pehchaan”.

Refresh your memory here.

Do they sound similar, to be inspired by a single song? Unlikely, right? That’s because you undermine Indian composers’ creativity. When you think like Nadeem Shravan, you’d assume, ‘Why waste a perfectly good original by getting inspired by it only once? Why not optimize the original into 2 different songs?’.

So, the composing duo use the prelude (chorus) from “Lovely Lady of Arcadia” exactly and compose the complete mukhda for ‘Yunhi Kat Jaayega Safar Saath’. The Hindi song’s entire mukhda is the prelude from Demis’ song, repeated a few times (before it goes to the antara bearing the film’s title).

And then they use the actual opening of Lovely Lady of Arcadia to compose the full mukhda of Salaami’s ‘Tumhe Chhede Hawa Chanchal’.

So,

We met one magic summer day

A dream came true and blew away

For as your love began to grow

The time had come for me to go

… becomes,

Tumhen Chhede Hava Chanchal

Sharaarat Tumse Seekhi Hai

Vo Baitha Phool Pe Bhanvara

Muhabbat Tumse Seekhi Hai

Mere Gulfaam Sun Lo Tum Deevaane Dil Ka Kehna Hai

Kiya Hai Faisala Maine Tumhaare Bin Na Rahana Hai

Nifty, huh? The only niggling background to all this hyper-creative exercise is that it is uncredited and without permission. That’s the thick line between a cover version and plagiarism.

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